Manilius and his Intellectual Background

Katharina Volk

The first study in English devoted to the Roman poet Manilius and his Astronomica

Presents the intellectual background to the work, which is the earliest comprehensive treatment of astrology

Paints a fascinating picture of the cultural imagination of the early Roman Empire

Manilius and his Intellectual Background

Katharina Volk

Description

This is the first English-language monograph on Marcus Manilius, a Roman poet of the first century AD, whose Astronomica is our earliest extant comprehensive treatment of astrology. Katharina Volk brings Manilius and his world alive for modern readers by exploring the manifold intellectual traditions that have gone into shaping the Astronomica: ancient astronomy and cosmology, the history and practice of astrology, the historical and political situation at the poem's composition, the poetic and generic conventions that inform it, and the philosophical underpinnings of Manilius' world-view. What emerges is a panoroma of the cultural imagination of the Early Empire, a fascinating picture of the ways in which educated Greeks and Romans were accustomed to think and
speak about the cosmos and man's place in it.

Manilius and his Intellectual Background

Katharina Volk

Table of Contents

1. The Mystery of Manilius2. Portrait of the Universe3. The Rules of Fate4. Horoscopes and Emperors5. Teaching and Poetry6. Making Sense of the World7. The Universe and Us

Manilius and his Intellectual Background

Katharina Volk

Author Information

Katharina Volk is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics, Columbia University.

Manilius and his Intellectual Background

Katharina Volk

Reviews and Awards

"It is very well done--thoroughly researched, lucidly written, balanced in judgment. As a general introduction to the essential aspects of the poet's intellectual and cultural milieu as they bear on the poem that he wrote, it should serve anyone who is interested in getting to know this text as a reliable vade mecum. For this, Volk has placed us all very much in her debt." --New England Classical Journal